Cohort 12 wrapped up their HALO Award journey in January with an in-person session at The California Endowment in Downtown Los Angeles. Over this program year, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, Communities in Schools of LA, Education through Music Los Angeles, LA Family Housing, Rainbow Labs, and Sprouts of Promise achieved significant progress in strengthening their volunteer programs. They refined the roles that volunteers can take on to bolster their organizations’ missions, implemented methods to track their volunteers’ impact, clarified organizational roles to streamline processes for long-term efficiency, and overall gained more clarity and structure in their respective volunteer programs.
From left to right: Jerome Greening, Chief Executive Officer at PUENTE Learning Center (Cohort 11); Andrew Glazier, CEO and President at Defy Ventures (Cohort 10);
and Terry Bright, Director of Programs at Elizabeth House (Cohort 7)
In the afternoon, we were joined by HALO Award alumni Jerome Greening, Chief Executive Officer at PUENTE Learning Center (Cohort 11), Andrew Glazier, CEO and President at Defy Ventures (Cohort 10), and Terry Bright, Director of Programs at Elizabeth House (Cohort 7), who offered a wealth of wisdom and practical advice for the current cohort members. They spoke about how constantly re-evaluating your volunteer program and remaining flexible and agile to tackle issues that arise are instrumental to a thriving volunteer program. They also stressed that an organization’s culture, maintaining clear and constant communication channels with volunteers, and having a strong point of contact to spearhead the volunteer program are some key factors in volunteer retention. They encouraged the cohort to continue to cross-collaborate with one another and re-assess their volunteer programs well beyond the program year for sustained growth and strengthening of their volunteer programs.
Although goodbyes are always bittersweet, the session ended joyously as Cohort 12 reflected on and celebrated the growth achieved throughout the program year. The Carl & Roberta Deutsch Foundation looks forward to staying connected and seeing the ongoing progress of Cohort 12’s volunteer programs!